CIA leak update: Everything old is new again

posted at 2:14 pm on April 27, 2006 by Allahpundit

Unarchived in 2002: U.S. officials who defend the renditions say the prisoners are sent to these third countries not because of their coercive questioning techniques, but because of their cultural affinity with the captives. Besides being illegal, they said, torture produces unreliable information from people who are desperate to stop the pain.

Pulitzer in 2005: It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials.

Did Priest’s sources lie to her in 2002 about the real reason for rendition? Or did she get herself some new sources for Prison Story v2.0? The plot’s so thick now you need a chainsaw to cut through it.

JG comments at length about what we know thus far. The American Thinker, meanwhile, is going for the gold. Teaser: “Could the Wilson-McCarthy-Africa connection … indicate another instance of US intelligence and Foreign Service personnel taking advantage of regulatory loopholes and lax security in third world countries for personal gain?”

Update: Rick Moran says Goss might be ready to start going after ex-agents, which could mean bad news for the leak-if-it-feels-right crowd at VIPS. Why ex-agents? Check out this e-mail Former Spook says he received from someone on the inside:

“I got a call from inside the government. Someone wanted me to let people know that the people who were fired by Goss and/or have left thegovernment to write books have gone to work for intel outside contractors where they have just put on their badges and go right back into the agency and hang around just like before. I am told that they are in the lunch room talking to GS-10s and11s, and 12s to stir up a revolt.”

Could security be that bad inside CIA headquarters? Would anything surprise you anymore?

[Bill Bennett] seems to be of the camp that the government and only the government should decide what the public should know in the area of national security. In this sense, his views run contrary to the framers of the Constitution who believed a free press was essential to maintaining not just a democracy, but a strong, vibrant democracy in which major policy is questions are debated in the open.

Right. If anyone’s going to decide what we should and shouldn’t know about national security, it should be Dana Priest and Mary McCarthy.

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The Democrat Party Operatives are depending upon a lost war to recapitulate their marvelous successes of the Middle 1970s, when they saddled America with the Dolt from Georgia. Without a coherent policy framework or an ethical basis for the construction of a Campaign Platform, the Party of Treason (since the 1930s, you could look it up) can indulge their lust for Political Power (Machtlust)only if the Electorate become disgusted with with the failed International Initiatives of the presently governing Party. The disloyal Federal Bureaucracy, working from within an unassailable Democrat Stronghold, have constituted themselves the Non-Commissioned Officers of this Wehrmacht of the Coup d’Etat. The Democrat Party has NO vision for American Freedom and American Exceptionalism. The Democrat Treoreticians, to the extent that they are capable of thought, desire only to transplant the French Governing Template to America. Then we shall have riots instead of political campaigns and revolutions to change the Incumbent Masters from Tweedledums to Tweedledees, with real POWER ever residing in the BUREAUCRACY.

Unfortunately, the political battle is very deeply entrenched in the intel world as well. Nothing like a spy who is more concerned with protecting the civil liberties of those he/she spies on than in protecting America’s national security interests. It doesn’t make any sense as to why someone who takes the anti-America position would want to work for the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc. I guess it makes it easier to undermine our country while working there. No wonder our intelligence went down the tubes during the Clinton years. That’s also why our enemies love it when liberals are in power — liberals have our enemies interests at heart.

National security, debated in the open. Who’s the enemy here? They didn’t really just say that…please tell me that OBL said this and the quote was misplaced…
PLEASE tell me that our newspapers are not so lost as to really think giving the enemy all of our secrets is the way for a democracy. Treason charges would follow.
Are they losing so much business to the digital age that they will say ANYTHING to sell a couple newpapers? Are they (MSM) that obtuse? This is a contest puzzle, right?
NO AMERICAN CAN THINK LIKE THAT !! CAN THEY???
Just the last few days is enough to disgust any true American, at least an American from the USA.
The enemy is laughing at you DP.

You know, I’m sure the Framers of the Constitution wanted open and honest debate on major issues. But to insinuate that includes openly debating the logistics of intelligence gathering and military planning is beyond the pale. This woman is in serious need of an ass-kicking. Why do these people long to destroy our country when what it stands for allows them to spew such nonsense?

I have said it many times, and I believe it very firmly in my soul, The liberals and the Democrats are just as responsible for the deaths of many of our servicemembers overseas as the terrorist who pulled the trigger or detonated the IED. The terrorists enablers in our own country, and apparently in all of our institutions, have provided more incentive and boosted the morale of the terrorists while at the same time expressing so much concern about those in harms way. Why do you think sHillary gives a press conference talking about body armor and includes charts and photos showing exactly where a sniper could aim to defeat it? We experience a sudden influx of deaths from snipers in Iraq, she complains about inadequate armor and Cindy Shehan and her ilk get more grist for their anti war crowd.
Want another example. The Washington Post and NY Times publish stories outlining how we are monitoring communication from terrorists. A week later I start reading CENTCOM briefings detailing how our Special Forces folks in Afghanistan are finding a lot of cell phones laying along goat paths in the mountains. Their first concern was that these triggering devices for IED’s.
The NY Times unrelenting regurgitation of the Abu Gharib story. They have allowed 8 to 10 undisciplined soldiers, some of who are prison guards in civillian life, become the face of our military. In the meantime people like SFC Paul Smith, http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/smith/ a Medal of Honor recipient are ignored.
It is time to drop the hammer on some of these folks and teach them, as many in the press are fond of saying when refusing to show the Mohmhead cartoons, with free speech comes responsibilty.

Dear LakeRuins very well said, I tip my cap to you very moving. I was one of the people that sent emails to the pinko slime at the University of Calf. at Sant Cruz. I was A very bad boy. I would say something like this “come over my house I would like to show you my gun collection”, and I meant it. They were crying about the emails they received, to bad. Violence begats violence, “you reap what you sow”. I read one email on a bat web site – subjust – Military – The email started out by calling these people every name in the book and then said. “We are A group of retired Army snipers and we are watching you”. I guess the hammer droped.